To quote the National Park Service, "The Tower is an astounding geologic feature that protrudes out of the prairie surrounding the Black Hills. It is considered sacred by Northern Plains Indians and indigenous people. Hundreds of parallel cracks make it one of the finest crack climbing areas in North America." The website of Earth Trekkers offers the following explanation of how it formed: "50 million years ago, molten lava was forced into underground layers of sedimentary rock. As the magma cooled, it formed hexagonal columns of igneous rock. Over millions of years, the sedimentary rock eroded away, gradually revealing Devils Tower." It rises 867 feet above its base. You may recognize it from the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", which features Devils Tower as a landing site for aliens. There's a 1.3 mile trail around the base of the tower which is characterized as "easy". I quarrel with that, but the altitude and my asthma may be partly responsible for my personal "difficulty rating". Colorful bundles are found hanging from tree branches around the tower; these are prayer bundles left by Native Americans.
